


To Stand At Your Shoulder

by Cosmic_Biscuit



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Drama, Families of Choice, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Loss, Memories, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-10-22 05:46:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 5,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10690971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cosmic_Biscuit/pseuds/Cosmic_Biscuit
Summary: The last of your kind. It's such a heavy title to carry. Especially during those cold, terrifying moments where it seems like you're all each other has. (Introspectives and alternate takes on Canon, Coran and Allura-centric.)





	1. Evaluation

The new power crystal was in place.

All of the damage in the engine control center had been successfully cleaned up by the droids.

They’d lifted off from Balmera cycles ago with no further problems

Everyone else was sleeping.

And yet he still sat, his expression blank staring at the castle’s feeds as they repeated twenty near-fatal tics again and again. 

Sighing, he leaned forward against the console, hands folded under his chin.

He hadn’t even turned his head, damn him. _Why?_ It was his _job_ to recognize these threats when they came on board, and yet the bomb droid hadn’t even blipped in his senses, to the Blue Paladin’s detriment.

What if _Allura_ had been there? What if it had been _her_ life on the line? Was he going to be so blinded _then?_

Coran finally shut off the recording and just sat in the quiet darkness, tilting his head back to gaze up at empty nothing as the possibilities turned over in his brain. 

No one knew what kind of side effects came along with extended cryo-pod usage. Before their stretch, the longest anyone had been in a chamber was roughly two hundred years, barely thirteen turnings. Allura had bounced back just fine, but then… Allura had always been special, hadn’t she? Her connection to the universe's Quintessence had been nearly equal to her parents' even when she was a tiny pip. Maybe he needed to run some tests on himself for some kind of after effects.

But what if… it… wasn’t that? 

He stretched, feeling it ache in his shoulders and back in ways it didn't used to. Maybe… maybe he just wasn’t the royal guard he used to be. He still wasn’t the longest-tenured spymaster, but Sarnal had always been able to act only from the shadows, rarely putting himself in danger for the royals he protected. 

Coran absently brushed gloved fingertips against hidden scars under one eye. Maybe all his old injuries were finally catching up to him and taking his senses with them.

He blew out a slow, long breath, then pushed himself up from the chair. 

Either way, that just wasn’t going to do.

Either way, he was going to have to do better.

Lives depended on it.


	2. Mourning

“You’re drunk.”

“Good of you to notice." Coran seemed to regret his choice of words for a moment, then merely took another swig. It had been a stupid observation on her part anyway. The pile of open canas spoke for themselves, really.

Allura rolled her eyes, then grabbed an unopened one. “Budge over. What’s the occasion, anyway?” she asked, cracking the seal.

“Mirje’s deathday.”

She hesitated, then tossed back a huge drink, wincing. Altean spirits didn’t burn nearly as much as Orichian, but she wasn’t a drinker yet. “Good reason. She’d approve.”

“She would’ve rather been here to do the drinking,” he muttered, finishing off the last dregs of the one he had. 

The look on his face hurt more than the alcohol, and she put the cana down, leaning over to rest her head on his shoulder. “Yeah,” she mumbled, wrapping her arms around his. “S’not fair.”

Her and Joitree both. She’d been looking forward to their promise to take her out on her official ‘old enough’ birthday. And Dracha… she’d wanted to go see a hatching so badly… Even Zarkon, the way he’d let her hide behind him when she was little and pretend he didn’t know she was there…

Mother long ago... Prichel… The Cousins… Her Father… Her friends...

She wasn’t even drunk yet. She didn’t have an excuse. But before she knew it, her head was buried in Coran’s shoulder and her own shoulders were shaking as she sobbed. Arms wrapped around her in a tight hug, and she clung back, gulping in air in sharp hiccups as tears continued to spill, refusing to abate.

Her drink had long gone warm by the time the fit released her. Heaving turned to gasps, turned to coughs before she finally managed to get herself back under control and pull away. “Sheraiz,” she choked. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Coran said, and were those tear streaks he was wiping with the heel of his glove? “You needed it.”

“Yeah… I guess I did,” she admitted, though she didn’t like it. 

Then he cracked open another cana, and they silently toasted everything they’d lost.


	3. Silent Panic

Every time she buckles after overexerting herself to keep the Castle fighting, every time she starts that funny rasp in her breathing and can’t lift her head, his heart starts to stutter in that familiar drumbeat of fear.

Because he remembers.

He remembers how Alfor’s markings would flicker, struggling to stay lit.

He remembers how Illyere’s glowing eyes would go dim, taking all her fire away.

He remembers how Uncle Rorek would seem to fade, the color washing out of him just a little.

He remembers how Aunt Micelle's breathing would become so labored, and she would wave it off as if it was nothing.

How the ever-chattering Twins would go so quiet and dull, leaning on each other for support.

How Nurse Prichel’s ears would droop so low and she would check her own pulse before pressing on.

How Aldran would-

How Beren would-

How Turimi would-

How countless young and old, dying of starvation and sickness and radiation poisoning, drew on their own quintessence until their bodies had nothing left to give, and they simply became washed out ghosts of themselves in death.

And he is terrified.

Because she is all he has left.


	4. Retrograde

“Why are you piloting?! Where’s Alfor?!”

Allura blinked and raised her head. They… hadn’t crashed into the end of the vortex? She shook her head to clear the blur out of her vision, then Coran’s words registered. 

Alfor? Why in sheraiz would he be asking fo-

She stared. “Coran?”

He stared back at her. “…Princess? Is… is that you?”

“Of course it’s me, why wouldn’t be?”

“You’re grown! When did that happen?! And where’s the crew?! Where’s your father?!”

Allura felt her heart leap into her throat. No. Nononono- “It’s not- _I’m_ not-  _You're_ younger!"

_“Me?!”  
_

Squeaks of alarm made her look down, and she gasped. The mice that had stayed inside the piloting control panel with her were unchanged, but Platt had fallen out and was- was… _smaller?_ “We have to get out of here. Coran, we’re trapped inside a wormhole with no positioning. Falling through the void made you and Platt... _de-age!”_

“Well, find a coordinate to get us out of here before we hit the void again!”

“I’m trying!” she said desperately, running her hands over the maps in an effort to get the targeting system to lock on to a planet or planetoid, _anything._ “It’s not _worki-”_

The alarms screeched as the void swallowed them again.

—

“Why in the Glories am I back on the Castle?! Where’s Illyere?! We’re supposed to be-”

 _Illyere-_ “Mother?!”

“ _Mother-_ who in quiznak are _you_? What’s going on?!”

Allura felt sick to her stomach. The other mice had managed to drag Platt back into the pilot bubble, but- “Coran, listen to me, _please_. Illyere was my mother. Alfor was my father. They’re _gone_ and we’re trapped in a wormhole and you _have_ to help me _find a way out of here!”_

Guard instincts overriding confusion, Coran steadied himself against the navigation control panel and frowned in thought. “Have... have you tried full scan coordinates?”

“Yes!”

“Have you tried using the ship’s cannons to throw us free?”

“I- No!”

“Well, let’s give it a go! No worse than hitting the wall again.”

Allura gritted her teeth, setting energy charge as Coran prepared the targeting. All systems forward and-

Nothing but darkness.

—

“He-Hebe! Qirika?! Auntie?! I’m scared!”

_No, no, Ancients, **no!**_

Allura could have cried, feeling despair welling in her chest as she raised her head to see the gangly redheaded child cowering under the navigation console. If something didn’t work soon, she was going to lose him _entirely._ It wasn’t as though steering had worked at all their last several trips, so she dropped to her knees. “Coran!”

Wide blue eyes turned in her direction. “Who’re you?!”

“Your Auntie sent me to keep you safe! Can you come here, please?”

He whimpered, curling up smaller, then screwed himself up and darted out from under the console, running into her arms. She held him tight, burying her face into his hair.

"It’s okay. It’s okay, I’ve got you,” she said, rubbing his back and trying not to think about the fact that it would normally be the other way around.

At least on the next go through, she wouldn’t have to worry about-

A sharp explosion rocked the ship, throwing them into one of the steering pedestals, and she screamed in panic as the impact ripped Coran from her hold and sent him tumbling across the floor. “ _No!”_

And then darkness enveloped everything once more.

—

She threw herself out of the protection of the piloting bubble despite the mice’s squeaks of alarm as soon as the lights were on again, looking under and around every console. “Coran? _Coran?!”_

_Please, glories, please, please, please don’t let him have-_

A soft whimper answered her, and under Pidge’s seat, she found the infant curled in a tiny protective ball. “Oh, stars,” she breathed, delicately lifting him into her arms and cradling him close as she went back to the pilot core. ‘Stay with me,” she begged softly as she knelt down to keep him safe. “I can’t lose the only family I have left. The only father I have left.”

Coran snuggled closer, burying his face into her neck with a soft coo and the mice huddled around her legs. She bit her lip, bracing herself for the next void-

And the beacon alert began beeping.


	5. Burnout

Bio-scanners were registering a higher-than-normal body temperature.

No problem, really. He added a few crushed iquilu roots to his morning brew to act as a natural coolant, then went about his business as normal. The star map updates weren’t going to wait, after all.

—

He munched on a few more as he ate his lunch while working on the cleaning droids for the third time that week. He was going to have to talk to the others when they got back from planetside about taking decontamination more seriously. Whatever it was that was clogging the vents of the poor little bots, he was getting tired of finding it.

After he sent the last droid toodling on its way, he checked his bio-signature again. Hm, still running warm. Perhaps that fever he’d picked up two moons ago on Quukam had come back.

Well, there was nothing to be done for it. He had far too much to do. He’d just have to filch some more roots from the kitchens on his way to his next task.

—

Chewing absently, he finished reconnecting the last of the lights in the hallway, and stood back, satisfied, as the full set of emergencies flashed on, then powered back off. 

One more chore down.

He turned on his heel, then lurched to the side as the floor suddenly rolled under him, and grabbed onto the doorframe to keep from pitching face-first into the wall. Blinking, he held on tight and stayed very still until his vision swam back into focus.

Well, then.

He opened the bio-scanner screen again, then sighed. 

He really didn’t have time for this.

—

Red rumbled at him as he worked a dent out of one of her shoulder panels, and he turned off the torch, tapping the head against the metal. “Don’t you lot start with me,” he warned. “Especially not _you._ I know full well _your_ paladin doesn’t get up here and do this.”

More rumbling.

“I am fully aware of my physical condition, _thank_ you. But until we have a larger crew, I will just have to make do.”

A _louder_ rumble, this time from Yellow.

“I will sleep when I’m _done,_ and no-”

His voice failed him when his vision did, and his feet slid away from where they’d been bracing against Red. Pain lanced through his shoulder and head as the construction harness crashed into the Lion’s side, his skull clanging against metal.

He only vaguely heard the Lions roaring in alarm as consciousness left him.

—

Awareness came back to him very slowly, black washing to grey, and then colors slowly leaking in through blurry eyes.

He was in a cryo chamber.

The last place he’d ever wanted to be again. 

Hating how slow his limbs were to respond, he lifted his hands and shoved against the glass, gratified when it opened with a hiss to let him free. Before he could stumble out, however, hands caught him from both sides, and the worried faces of Shiro and Allura swam into view for a brief moment, then she threw her arms around him, squeezing tight.

“Don’t you ever, _ever_ do that again,” she said, voice somewhere half growl and half sob.

“What?” Coran asked, still somewhat dazed.

“Can’t… really explain it, but we all heard the lions screaming down planetside,” Shiro said, face pale with worry.

“They said you’d passed out while working on them and if we didn’t get up here pronto, you were gonna fall and die,” Hunk added from the chair he’d apparently been keeping a sleeping vigil in, judging by the blanket.  "We found you just... hanging in the harness."

There were a lot of pillows and blankets in the room.

“What were you _thinking_?” Allura asked, finally easing up her grip on him.

Coran sighed and looked away uncomfortably, raking a hand through his hair. “Someone has to keep this place running while you lot are off doing the fighting.”

“So it’s okay to just push yourself to _death_?”

He found he didn’t have an answer for that.

“You’re up!” Another small body barreled into his midsection, and when he’d gotten his breath back, he looked down to find Pidge had joined in the squeezing. “Holy crap, don’t scare us like that again!”

Coran hesitated, mind a muddle of conflicting thoughts. Thankfully, Hunk saved him with an arm slung around his shoulders, guiding them all towards the door. “Y’know, I bet all this will go down a lot easier after our man has had some nice soup. Amma always said soup is the best thing for when you’re sick, and she’s never been wrong before.”

“Alright,” Coran said, letting them pull him along. “Sounds good.”

He tried not to notice that they still watched him with worry.

It was going to be a very long talk, he could tell.


	6. Apprentice

“Coran’s been even busier than ususal, hasn’t he?” Pidge asked as they watched him haul a load of cables off toward the lions’ hanger. 

“True,” Allura said. “My last checkup of the castle’s bio-lifeform systems has put him at a much lower rest rate since the last major jump. I originally thought he was just throwing himself into getting the teludav repaired, but he completed that within the first night. He better not be burning himself out again.”

“Maybe we should find out what he’s up to now.”

“Pidge, are you suggesting we _spy_ on my retainer?”

“…maybe just a little?”

Almost as soon as he’d left, Coran returned, the bundle of cables replaced with a toolbox and a rolling bucket of some sort of sludge. Muttering under his breath, he stalked past them without so much as a ‘How do you do?’ and vanished into a repair tunnel.

Allura set her jaw. “Let’s go.”

—

Finding the older Altean in the repair tunnels was like the galaxy’s worst game of hide and seek. “How the hell does he even know these so well?” Pidge complained quietly when a flash of red hair missed them by mere inches yet again.

“He and his younger cousins used to play in here when they were little and had to stay away from the nobles,” Allura said, though she was no less frustrated. “Starting to wish he’d taught me the same. Wait, there!”

Coran had finally stopped by what looked like some sort of ancient glowing pneumatic chute and was taking it apart, using the sludge like some sort of grease to get the parts moving smoothly again as he put it back together. 

“What is that and why is he fixing it?” Pidge asked.

“I don’t know on either count,” Allura murmured, puzzled. Had he been doing this the whole time he was awake? Just finding _anything_ in the castle that wasn’t working correctly and repairing it? _Why_?

She chewed on her lip, thinking, then pulled on Pidge’s arm. “Come on,” she said, stepping out of their hiding place. “Coran!” she called up to him.

Coran cursed, nearly losing his balance in the harness that was holding him to the platform, then raised his focus goggles with a confused blink. “Princess? Five? What are you two doing here?”

“We could ask you the same thing,” Pidge said, leaning against the tunnel wall. 

“Oh. Well, you know, just keeping the castle her general ship-shape,” Coran said, with a smile as he tried to wipe a smudge of sludge off his face, but the cheer didn’t… quite match.

The pair glanced at each other. “Could you come down?” Allura asked.

“Ah, sure, just a tic.” Coran loosened the harness’ jesses holding it to the wall, rappelling down to their floor, then stripped off his gloves. “What do-”

Allura cut him off with a tight hug. “You-… You’d tell me if something was wrong, wouldn’t you?”

Coran stiffened, as if he was going to wave her off with affirmative, then deflated. “I have a lot I need to do, sweetbug,” he said gently. “You and I both know slipperies isn’t exactly a young buck’s disease. Now that I’ve already caught that, after what happened the last time I got sick…  It’s just a reminder that I won’t always be here to look after the old girl, so she’s got to be in as good a health as she can. Better than me.”

Allura squeezed him even tighter, and Pidge heard a soft sniff. “That’s not fair. You could still be here a long time. You Nixet Promised.”

Coran softened, petting her hair. “I did, didn’t I? Bared teeth and everything,” he said with a more genuine smile.

“And the growl,” Allura agreed before pulling away. “So you’ll just have to find someone else to take as an apprentice, and spend a good long time teaching them to fix her.”

“Like me,” Pidge said with a grin, finally breaking in to the conversation, and Coran reached out to scruff short hair.

“I guess I will.”


	7. Regrets

Castle systems check…

Everything normal.

Air circulating through the vents, energy running through the channels, auto-navigation was still on course…

Bio-rhythms scan indicated all other passengers were at rest.

Coran sighed softly and leaned back in his seat, tracing gloved fingers over the reading. How long since this new team had come together had it been since _that_ result had come up? 

Even the Blades that were currently aboard their ship, as seasoned and battle hardened as they were, were barely half his age. They should have gotten the chance to be explorers like their ancestors, reaching out to investigate new worlds, not…  _this._

And these Paladins… The Princess…

He trusted them.

He _did._

That wasn’t the problem.

The problem was seeing the light in their eyes dimming little by little. Hearing them walking the halls at all hours because they didn’t dare sleep.

War wasn’t fair.

He knew that so _very_ well.

But did it _have_ to be shouldered by those so young?

He looked at the reading again, then pulled up several more screens and began reaching into his web of contacts, seeking out all the little chains of information and aid that he could get hold of. 

If nothing else, perhaps he could ease the weight of their burden.

Even just a little.


	8. Accidental

_“Please?”_

Maybe they didn’t work to get her off the ship to go shopping, but the big pleading eyes were still a charm to convince her old combat trainer for a spar, and she beamed as she took down the electrobatons from the wall.

“No staff?” Coran asked as he stretched.

“I’m feeling nostalgic,” Allura said with a grin. “Besides, I can connect them mid-fight. You showed me how, remember?”

“Ah, so I did. Well, then, shall we?”

It was an old, familiar dance, one they hadn’t gotten the chance to practice since she was several inches shorter and times were much more peaceful.

It was almost… comforting. Exhilarating. Both at once, somehow. At least _this_ hadn’t changed in all the chaos that had befallen them-

-at least not until she’d connected the batons, and a strange crackle sang out from her chest to her fingertips when she brought the staff up to block.

“ _Coran!”_

That hadn’t been a glitch in the staff, she just _knew_ it hadn’t. That had been _her_ that had blown him off the dueling floor and into the wall, and her heart froze in her chest as she dropped the staff and ran to his side.

Oh, Glories, oh, Ancients, _please-_

Thankfully, by the time she was crouching to roll him over, he was already trying to heave himself up, smoking, coughing, but _alive and awake. “_ That’s new,” he drawled between gasps, trying to protect his ribs on his right side.

“Coran- Coran, I’m _sorry-”_

_“Breathe,_ sweetbug,” he chided, reaching up weakly to squeeze her shoulder, and it almost made it _worse_ that he was trying to comfort _her_ when she had hurt him so badly. “What happened? Do you know?”

“I’m… not _sure_. It just… it just _came out_ of me. I had it when I was fighting Haggar, but I didn’t mean- not on _you-”_

_“_ Easy… easy… Just means it’s not instinctive control.” He groaned, trying to sit up, and Allura made him stay down when it was clear that was _not_ a good idea. “Hah- like your healing.”

“Healing?” She looked at her hands, then at him.

“Don’t you dare,” he warned. “Illyere -your mother- never got to advance your training that far. Just… just call a gurney.” He wrinkled his nose. “Would have preferred not to visit the chambers again this soon.”

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered miserably, holding on to his hand like when she was little.

“Don’t be,” he said soothingly. “Just learn better, alright?”

“I will.”

—

She sat quietly beside the cryo chamber as he slept inside, leaning her head against the cool glass, a datapad in her lap.

“Archives,” she said softly. “Show me any records of my mother training me in healing.”


	9. The Odds

The multi-armed alien is curled in a tight little ball under a console in the Lions’ hanger when Coran finds him, having been tipped off by Yellow and the muttered sound of dire predictions.

A strange fellow this Slav may be, but he knows how to deal with the sight of someone having bad nightmares, and very gently taps a hand clamped over an ear with one of the cold bottles he’s carrying. “Easy, it’s just me,” he says when that draws a yelp and a frenzied attempt to curl up even smaller. “Come out of there and rehydrate before you sweat yourself to nothing.”

“I have only a twelve per cent possibility of being able to die of dehydration in my current condition,” Slav mumbles, but slinks out of his hidey-hole nonetheless. 

The bags under his eyes are pretty spectacular.

Coran gently waves the offered bottle in front of his face, and Slav eyes it suspiciously before snatching it and cracking the seal, sniffing at the spicy-sweet contents. “Belai? Why would you keep this in stock?”

He shrugs. “It’s a good idea to be stocked for everything,” he says as if that actually answers the question instead of dodges it, and pretends not to notice the very obvious change in the way Slav looks at him.

Maybe he answered more accurately than he wanted to. Oh, well.

He takes a seat on a mechanic’s stool and his slithery little drinking buddy clambers up onto the console and takes a swig. “More bad dreams about other realms?” Coran asks once Slav has had enough that the question won’t send him into a complete frenzy.

“Oh, my, yes. Always. So many. And the percentages of them happening are so high. There is a ninety-eight per cent possibility that our rescue mission on Rurikora will end with seven children dead and ourselves in captivity. Eighty-six per cent-”

“Slav. Have you ever tried not thinking about the likely timelines?” Coran asks, and Slav looks up from his bottle with a head-tilt that reminds him of Allura when she was a toddler.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, try imagining something completely outlandish. Like… Pidge becoming Queen of the Turimonquans.”

Slav blinks at him, then snorts out a barking noise that sounds like a laugh. “But that only has an-”

“Don’t tell me the percentage.”

“W-what? But you said-”

Coran thinks, tapping a fingertip against his own bottle. “Tell me… tell me what her coronation outfit looks like.”

—

And that, he discovers, is the secret. Never talk about the percentages. Percentages bring anxiety, and an anxious, stressed Slav is a bundle of nervous energy that drives the entire crew off the handle. 

So instead, every time Coran gets that itch up the back of his neck that means a certain alien is _somewhere_ in the Castle having a breakdown, he quietly fishes a couple of bottles of Belai out of the cooling chambers, digs Slav out of wherever he’s hiding-

-and they talk.

About other timelines, mostly. Worlds that never happened, or have the slimmest chances of happening. But never in percentages. Instead, Coran always asks for visions, images, what Slav _sees_ as his mind reaches out into those pathways that wind before and behind them.

“There is a timeline where we all really _do_ end up becoming space pirates,” Slav says as he rolls his bottle back and forth between his paws.

“Yeah?” Coran takes a drink. “What are you wearing for your pirating outfit?”

“For some reason, I have many, many earrings. I do not understand. It seems very inefficient to have so many earrings.”

“Maybe it makes you look tough.”

“Hm. I have always wondered what it would be like to be the frightening-looking one for a change.”

—

“I don’t understand how you can put up with him,” Allura mutters when she notices the alien curled up peacefully beside him in a snoozing lump. “If I have to kick him off the piloting controls one more time, I’m going to scream.”

Coran absently pets an ear, and Slav mutters in his sleep, not about probability, but about energy sails and swords. “Just have to give him the right outlet, that’s all.”


	10. Guard

Breathing hurt.

Being still hurt.

Staying _alive_ hurt.

She’d managed to cram herself into a storage space, but had lost her helmet in the process, and her ribs -bruised or broken- were protesting her being folded up so small. She’d tried to shapeshift herself _smaller_ to take some of the pressure off, but she could only hold it for a few seconds at a time before pain broke her concentration. 

And her bayard… 

Her bayard…

She closed her fingers as tightly around it as she could, which wasn’t much. Her hands weren’t responding correctly after they’d been stomped on repeatedly before she’d managed to get free. 

_“Allura!”_

Her breath hitched achingly in her chest at the tinny sound of Coran’s voice through the comm in the helmet lying out on the floor. 

_“Allura, where are you!?”_

She bit her lip. His voice meant a connection to her team, meant  _safety,_ but she didn’t dare move from her hiding spot, not when there were still two dozen droids at  _least_ still out there searching and she was good and well trapped.

_“Allura, please!”_

Something… something… there had to be-

Summoning up her nerve and hoping beyond hope that the droids wouldn’t be able to pinpoint where the sound was coming from, she turned her head towards the helmet, shifted her vocal cords a bit, and made a fluttering whine.

The pain cry of the rhiapips back home.

There was a long silence, broken only by the whirring and clanking of the droids, then-

_“Understood.”_

The lights of the helmet went dim, but she breathed a weak sigh of relief.

Okay.

_Okay._

She gritted her teeth against the pain and pulled back deeper into her hiding place.

—

Loud banging noises brought her back up out of the pain daze.  _Wha-_

Fear electrified her nerves as she at first thought she’d been caught, then she realized that the crashing was metal on metal. Cautiously poking her head out from under the shelves, she was met with the sight of a melee.

And she had never been more relieved in her life to see Coran smash a droid’s head in with his old wrist-shield. “Coran!”

Slicing off another’s in a half-spin as he turned, he looked up to see her as she staggered from her hiding spot. “Princess!” Barely taking time to shoot a hole in a third with a service pistol, he caught her when she stumbled. “Glories am I glad to see- sweet stardust, you’re a wreck,” he said, trying to keep her up without further injuring her ribs.

Allura laughed weakly and buried her face against his shoulder, unable to hug him properly. “Glad to see you, too. I was almost afraid the rhiapip call wouldn’t work.”

“Wouldn’t _work?_ ” Lance asked in disbelief as he blasted the head off another droid, backing up to give them cover. “You shoulda  _seen_ this guy’s face when he got that signal!”

“Good thing these were all droids, he’d’a ripped off some heads if they were live,” Hunk agreed, flanking their other side as they started making their way back out the way the crew had undoubtedly come in, judging by the holes in the walls. “ _Scary_.”

“Hmph. I reacted _exactly_ the proper amount for the situation,  _thank_ you,” Coran replied crossly and, if anything, he focused  _more_ attention on keeping Allura on her feet.

And she didn’t mind at all.


End file.
